


Circumambulation

by usaaqis



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Other, kind of???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 00:44:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10321607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usaaqis/pseuds/usaaqis
Summary: Keith grows up in Puget Sound, and every time he sees the ocean, he thinks of him. Who 'him' is, Keith isn't sure, but he can't think of any sort of water without being reminded of him. 'Him' feels blue.





	

     Lance never feels quite right. Nothing in his life feels right. He has a sister, a brother, a mother, and a father, but somehow, he always feels like his family should be bigger than it is. He lives in the deserts of Arizona, and he craves the ocean like it's a drug. The first time his family takes a vacation to San Diego and he sees it, he cries. When his family asks why, all he can tell them is that it feels right to be there in front of the surf. It feels like home.

     Keith's parents let him pick his own name. He'd cycled through a few, but by the time he was eight, he'd firmly decided on Keith. All the names in the world, and he picked Keith. But it's so strangely familiar, makes him feel so fitted in his skin. 

     Lance's favorite time of year is monsoon season. He endangers himself every year trying to spend as much time as possible in the rain. It's when he's twelve, out on one of these risky excursions, that he meets Takashi, trying to get home but stopped by a flash flood. Lance takes him home to offer him a phone, a blanket, a warm meal, and a ride home when the water goes down. He learns that Takashi registers as purple-black in his mind, and that he feels a bit less empty by his side. Somehow, though, he feels like things weren't supposed to happen in this order. He can't help but feel like Takashi's presence by his side should have been warm and buttercup yellow.

     Keith grows up in Puget Sound, and every time he sees the ocean, he thinks of him. Who 'him' is, Keith isn't sure, but he can't think of any sort of water without being reminded of him. 'Him' feels blue.

     Lance and Shiro meet Katie when Lance is thirteen, Shiro is fifteen, and Katie is ten. She has an older brother and a father, but her mother has been missing for years. Whether she was kidnapped or she left on her own, whether she was dead or alive, no one knew. But Katie, ten years old and already a genius, is determined to find out. Katie is green, and her name doesn't sound wrong, but it doesn't sound quite right, either. They take to calling her Pidge.

     Keith knows he is only part of a whole. He doesn't know what whole he's a part of, but he knows that on his own he isn't quite himself. He meets Hunk when he enters high school, and he thinks of Blue. But he and Hunk stick together, cling to each other for a reason neither can explain. Hunk is sunshine, and he's part of the same whole Keith is.

     Lance gets his first girlfriend, and he knows it won't work out. Her hair is too long, her eyes brown, not stormy gray, her gorgeous skin not the pale, dry skin he thinks of when he's with her. Lance gets his first boyfriend, but they don't last long either. His hair was too short, too light, and his voice didn't have the growling rumble of heat and mettle and ash that he hears in his sleep.

     Keith thinks of becoming a boat captain, but the sea doesn't feel like its right for him. He thinks about being a pilot, and his mind settles. The clouds begin to spell things out for him, things with 'L's and 'V's. Things that look like held hands and robots.

     Lance likes to hold bonfires in his backyard every so often, likes to invite his best friends Shiro and Pidge over. The crackling flames begin to whisper to him, telling him of vibrant colors with personalities to match, to find the other parts of himself, to find the fire's own equal. He so badly wants to.

     Keith and his family move to Arizona, because the prices are more reasonable, and because he has no idea what he really wants to do with his life. Actually being a pilot is a bit unreasonable to him; he doesn't want to pilot commercial planes, but he doesn't really want to join the Air Force, either. But if that's what he decides to do, Arizona's got the open space for learning. Hunk moves to Arizona to get a college education at ASU, where he'd got a scholarship for computer engineering. The clouds stop spelling things for him. The wind picks up the slack instead, and he feels like it is blowing him in a certain direction.

     Lance takes a gap year because he's still not sure where to go for school. He doesn't want to leave his friends, his family, his hometown behind, but none of the in-state schools have the marine biology major he wants. He meets Hunk out in town at a farmer's market, and they hit it off immediately. Lance feels like he's finally found the person he was supposed to find first, but he supposes it's better late than never.

     Keith finds himself wandering, on foot through the town, and then in his car throughout the state. He goes down to Tucson to visit Hunk one week, when Hunk's on break, and passes a boy on the way to the dorms. He feels as though he's been submerged in water, in the course of five dry Arizona seconds, so he stops and turns around. The boy does the same. Keith's world clicks into place, and he feels himself snap, new and taut, into his body, when he didn't know he'd been out of it before then. He reaches out for blue, blue, blue, and the boy whispers a strained "Keith?" Somehow, Keith nods, and joins his outstretched arm with the boy's. "Lance," he sighs into his shoulder from their now-close embrace, and he feels a tear make a path down his cheek. 

     Lance has a get-together the very next day, after a day of catching up with Keith. He invites Shiro, and Pidge, and Keith invites Hunk. Lance brings them together, like he always had, and the sense of relief, belonging, unity that had washed over them all was like a cool drink of water after a day spent parched under the summer sun. 

     "The owners of the local grocery store," Lance whispers conspiratorially to the group what feels like eons later, when really it's just another get together a couple weeks after the first. His hands are intertwined with Keith's, their legs tangled together. "Y'know, the cute girl- Allura, I think, and her dad, and her dad's weird but charismatic boyfriend? I always feel so weirdly happy to see her and the boyfriend with dad. She feels pink to me, and boyfriend feels orange- _no_ , Pidge, _not_ because of his hair. I think they might be part of all this too. What do you guys think?" Everyone grins at each other around the circle. 

Shiro nods. "I think you might be on to something, Lance."

**Author's Note:**

> UWAAAAH OKAY so!! My forte is writing boring essays, but I wanted to try my hand at story writing. c: I feel like the ending is kind of weak, but hopefully I'll improve as I keep trying!  
> I'm glad the format and everything worked out after all, so I could delete the old part of the notes concerning that! Thank you to everyone who's read this so far, and especially thank you to everyone who's given me a kudos or left a comment or bookmarked this, wow!! :0c I super appreciate it!


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